Staff Pick

Category: Environmental politics

No Impact Man

Describes the author's one-year experiment with minimizing his impact on the Earth, an effort for which he eschewed technology, processed foods, and other negative-impact products while evaluating the plausibility and actual value of sustainable living.
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A Chicken in Every Yard

A nuts-and-bolts guide to selecting and raising backyard chickens draws on the expertise of Oregon's Urban Farm Store to cover topics ranging from choosing compatible breeds and building a coop to raising chicks and seeking veterinary care, in a reference complemented by favorite egg recipes.
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Ecoholic

When the world’s environmental woes get you down, turn to Ecoholic – Canada’s best resource for practical tips and products that help you do your part for the earth. You’ll get the dirt on what not to buy and why, and the dish on great gifts, clothes, home supplies and more. Based on the... More Info

Farm Together Now

With interest in home gardening at an all-time high and concerns about food production and safety making headlines, Farm Together Now explores the current state of grassroots farming in the U.S. Part oral history and part treatise on food politics, this fascinating project is an introduction to the... More Info

The 100-Mile Diet

The remarkable, amusing and inspiring adventures of a Canadian couple who make a year-long attempt to eat foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment. When Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon learned that the average ingredient in a North American meal travels 1,500 miles from... More Info

Blessed Unrest

The environmentalist author of Natural Capitalism traces the contributions of a diverse, worldwide grassroots humanitarian movement through which conscientious individuals and organizations are dedicating their efforts to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. Reprint.
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Worldchanging

Provides information about environmental issues and technology, ranging from the home, workplace, and community, to social, cultural, and political arenas, and offers tips and advice to promote environmentally sustainable practices.
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The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food

With spiraling food prices and spreading social unrest, this is a timely guide to the instability of industrialized food systems. Wayne Roberts traces the history of food production and consumption, and shows that in a system dominated by supermarkets and agribusiness real food choices are becoming... More Info

What is water?

"We all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. But the spectre of a worldwide water crisis suggests there might be something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about water. Jamie Linton dives into the history of water as an abstractconcept, stripped of its environmental,... More Info

Bottlemania

An investigation into the commercialization of drinking water traces the process through which companies acquire, bottle, and market water, in an account that addresses such issues as the risks of water-decontaminating practices.
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Animal factory

The author of the best-selling Evidence of Harm presents a dramatic exposé of how some of America's most powerful factory farms and food-production industries are creating a dangerous public health crisis as reflected by the struggles of three stricken families and communities.
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The War in the Country

An award-winning writer's provocative look at rural communities and a passionate call to arms to save them. Rural life in North America has changed dramatically over the past fifty years. The few remaining family farms now struggle to survive. They have been replaced by corporate-backed factory... More Info

The Future History of the Arctic

"[The author] leads readers ... through the landscape, history, literature and politics of the North, from the wrongheaded theories of the ancients to diplomatic intrigues on the Arctic's borderlands, the brutality of the Soviet gulag archipelago, and the region's emergence as a strategically... More Info

Tropic of Chaos

An investigative journalist visits the economically and politically battered post-colonial nations around the earth's mid-latitudes and reveals how extreme weather in the era of climate change is breeding banditry, humanitarian crises and state failure.
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